Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/151

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��dispute, thus giving myself time to procure from Ills majesty's government, tiiose instructions which were necessary for the due fulfilment of his desires. They were, in fact, successively given to uie, by Don Jose Pizarro, and the Marquis de Casa Irujo, And I endeavoured to govern myself by them in every thing essential. But carried away by the ardent zeal which has always animated me for the honour and glory of my country, 1 solicited and ob- tained several advantageous conditions ^vhich the knowledge of the country ailbrded me, and which it was not possible for the government to have fore- seen, and in fact I signed a definitive treaty of set- tlement and limits with the American Secretary of State, on the 22d of February, 1819, making choice of that day as being the most sacred to the Anglo- Americans, on account of its being the birth day of the founder of their Kepublick, Washington.

This treaty, examined and approved by the Senate, signed by the President, and exchanged by the Secretary of State of that government and my- self, I transmitted to Spain by his Majesty's Con- sul at Alexandria, Don Joaquim Zamorano, whom I despatched for the purpose, in the beginning of March last; but, a few days after iris departure, it was published in all the gazettes of the Union, that the agent of the Duke of Alagon had offered for sale the lands that his Majesty had granted to the Duke, asserting that they were v.orth eight millions

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